On Christmas Eve, Israel quietly reported on "irregular event" in Gaza
by Kathryn Shihadah
I usually keep an eye on news coming out of Israel/Palestine, but December 24th was…a busy day. Just today, I bumped into a story that conveniently broke on Christmas Eve.
It’s from the Washington Post:
Israeli army: Civilian deaths unexpected in Gaza airstrike
The Israeli military on Tuesday said it has wrapped up an investigation into an airstrike that killed nine members of a Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip. The report claims the targeted house had been used by Islamic militants, but also admitted it didn’t expect the strike to result in civilian casualties.
The Nov. 14 airstrike in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah came in the closing hours of a fierce two-day burst of fighting between Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant group. Without warning, the overnight Israeli strike destroyed the house, killing nine members of the extended Abu Malhous family, including two women and five children under the age of 13.
A little background: my husband and I were in Palestine with a small group of activists at the time of this airstrike. We literally watched the F-16s fly in formation over our heads toward Gaza. And my husband was born in Deir al-Balah, where this attack took place; he has relatives there today. So this is not a distant event in a foreign land. It’s very personal.
“A fierce two-day burst of fighting” refers to these Israeli warplanes with 500-2000 pound bombs, against the Palestinian resistance, which employs homemade rockets and rocket launchers. In all of 2019, 5 Israelis were killed by Gazan rockets. (The last time an Israeli died from a rocket was July.) The Washington Post should have said, “a fierce two-day burst of bombing by Israelis and dying by Palestinians.”
The WaPo words, “killing nine members of the extended Abu Malhous family, including two women and five children under the age of 13,” are precise and impersonal, but they represent real people. A real family. This can not be overstated.
Muhannad, for example, was 12 years old when he died. His best friend said, “Muhannad and I used to play with our bicycles every day after school, but when it got dark at night, we loved to play hide and seek. He loved animals and especially dogs, he always wanted to adopt one.”
Muhannad’s two younger brothers, ages 2 and 3, were also killed. Their parents were killed as well, all as they slept.
4 1/2 month-old Farah
One sibling survived the attack – Muhannad’s 4 1/2 month old little sister, Farah. Farah is now, of course, an orphan.
Extended family were in the house too: five of Muhannad’s cousins and his uncle and aunt were also sleeping. Two of his cousins and his aunt died on the spot. A week later his uncle succumbed to his wounds.
Do we dare call baby Farah and her three surviving cousins the “lucky” ones? They now live with relatives, most likely in poverty (although the Palestinian Authority’s stipend program – the so-called Martyr’s Fund – was created primarily for the purpose of assisting families like this, who have lost their breadwinner to Israeli violence).
But even aside from the financial issues, these children’s lives are permanently altered.
Take a look at the site of their little home – they will carry the memory of that night for the rest of their lives.
Palestinian boy looks into a crater made in an overnight Israeli missile strike, that destroyed a house and killed members of the Abu Malhous family, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. (Khalil Hamra, File/Associated Press)
In addition to the nine members of this family, 27 other Palestinians were also killed – eight of them children – in Israeli airstrikes over a three-day period, November 12th – 14th.
185 homes were damaged, some destroyed; fifteen schools were also damaged. In three days. No doubt hundreds are became homeless, and hundreds of schoolchildren traumatized.
IDF spokesman Avichay Adraee
Israel boasts, then backpedals
After the dust settled, an Israeli army spokesman tweeted that the target of the attack had been “Rasmi Abu Malhous, leader of Islamic Jihad and the commander of the rocket unit in the central Gaza brigade.” The army even posted a photo of the fiend.
Apparently, we should have been impressed that Israel knew the name and address of this commander, and was able to strike his house with confidence and surgical precision.
Slight problem, though.
The Rasmi Abu Malhous who died in the attack was not a member of Islamic Jihad, and he wasn’t the man in the photo. In fact, nobody knows who that man is.
The IDF came back with a new statement:
We are aware of the claim that non-combatants were injured in the central Gaza Strip, and we are investigating it. We undertake great intelligence and operational efforts not to harm non-combatants over the course of thwarting terror activities.
Do you, though?
And you say you’re “aware of the claim that non-combatants were injured”? Try again: nine family members – seven of them women and children – are not claiming to be injured. They were killed by a bomb. One of the children was a little boy named Mohannad. He liked to play hide-and-seek, and he wanted a dog.
More errors
And then, another update.
The IDF was just kidding about targeting Rasmi Abu Malhous. They don’t know who this dead person was (or the other eight “non-combatants” for that matter), they have no idea how that IDF spokesman got his name, or how anybody thought he was a member of Islamic Jihad. The original announcement actually had not been “based on any intelligence,” according to a Ha’aretz source, but gleaned from social media.
Head of IDF Southern Command, Major General Herzi Halevy. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
According to the Ha’aretz journalist who broke the news, senior Israeli defense officials gave the ok to publish the “successful assassination” before verifying the information, “in an attempt by the IDF to display its achievements in targeting high-ranking Islamic Jihad operatives” – except that Rasmi Abu Malhous was not a high-ranking Islamic Jihad operative. He is, however, still dead, along with eight family members.
Oh, and then the IDF came out with this:
The airstrike was not targeting a terrorist after all – merely a building that was supposed to be empty. (It wasn’t.) Allegedly, the shack belonging to Rasmi Abu Malhous (who was not in Islamic Jihad) was actually a “military compound,” and Israeli intelligence had approved it as a target – but hadn’t checked it in the past year, nor had they taken a final look before dropping a bomb on it. And yet, somehow they felt quite certain that it had been “used for military purposes” just days earlier.
Honest mistake. It happens to the best of us.
Head-scratcher
A “defense source” said that the IDF is still trying to understand what the family was doing at the site.
Notice how Israel is subtly blaming the victim: “What in the world were you doing in that empty military compound?” A better question might be, “why didn’t the IDF know Rasmi Abu Malhous and his family had been living there, in a non-military location, for twenty years?”
Then Israel made small concession: “The military doesn't rule out a Palestinian claim that the family had been living there for quite some time prior to the attack.” To paraphrase: “Ok, maybe you lived there. That’s one of many possible explanations for the fact that twelve people were sleeping there at 1:00 in the morning when we dropped a bomb on the building.”
So the bottom line is that nobody in the IDF really knew anything. And yet they dropped a bomb and killed nine “non-combatants.”
Here’s another gem:
The IDF “expressed great frustration with how events unfolded.” The IDF is “frustrated”? Is that the strongest emotion they can identify at this moment?
One official wrote the incident off as an innocent mistake. He really did. Seriously.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi (Photo: Reuters)
Lessons learned
So the IDF “investigated” the incident, and quietly closed the investigation as much of the world was celebrating a holiday. But a great lesson was learned in the investigation – invaluable, really. A lesson that makes all the “frustration” worthwhile. The IDF released the following recommendation:
When planning and carrying out an attack, have “the aim of reducing, as much as possible, the recurrence of similar irregular events.”
“Irregular events” – not even “mistakes.” No apology. No remorse. That’s par for the course.
The Christmas Eve Washington Post article suggests that “The incident has raised new questions about Israeli tactics in Gaza.”
Yeah…no it hasn’t. Nothing is going to change.
The world took little notice when 36 Palestinians, mostly civilians and many children, died in just three days. Almost no one stayed with the story to see what the “investigation” would turn up, and Israel has now declared itself essentially innocent of any wrongdoing.
(This is typical of Israel’s self-investigations – read about the Mavi Marmara and the 2008-9 “war” on Gaza. Now Israel also wants to self-investigate its actions in the 2014 “war,” instead of allowing the International Criminal Court do its job.)
In 3 major assaults since 2008, Israel has killed over 3,700 Gazans – a quarter of them were children, 60% were civilians. 79 Israelis were killed – 1 was a child, 9 were civilians (read here about one extended family in Gaza that lost 38 members during the 2014 assault).
Israel hasn’t suddenly gotten sloppy on the battlefield. Palestinian lives have always been a dime a dozen.
Stay alert
This is a travesty, but we mustn’t get so caught up in the scandal that we forget about the human beings: nine dead, innocent people and three orphans. Mohannad wanted a dog.
This is a classic hasbara tactic: bury the primary atrocity beneath a barrage of peripheral detail. Offer statements that deflect our attention from the original horror. Soon it will fade from memory.
NO. We will not fall for that. We will not forget that this massacre – and many others – actually happened to real people. Nor will we forget the Nakba, the occupation, the apartheid.
And we will not fear that “anti-Semitic” label. Anyone who wants to cover up atrocities with name-calling should be ashamed.
This daily routine of injustice won’t stop by itself. Unless we do something, Israel will continue to get away with murder.